Weekend conversation starters.

May I offer you some questions today, for conversations you may have this weekend?

“I ask him what made him laugh today.”

I was talking with a friend whose husband teaches in middle school. She said that over dinner she asks him about his day, but with that focus on laughter. For that couple, it’s a brilliant question.

“How is your heart?”

I saw a friend for the first time in five years. We are both pastors. We worked closely for a few years. We’ve been apart. In the conversation in the aisle at Target, after the talk of family and location, he asked the important question, the integrity question.

“What are the most emotionally-charged tasks on my to-do list?”

I asked that of myself the other day, and then made those items be the top 5 things on the list. I was much less stressed by noon.

“What would it be like to talk to people like Zacchaeus the way Jesus did?

I’m asking that of several people right now. Zacchaeus was a tax-collector who climbed up in a tree to see Jesus. He climbed, Luke says, because he was too short to see over the crowd. He could have run in front, I’m guessing, but the judgment of the crowd would have been obnoxious. I’m curious about planting trees with low branches that would let curious people who want to see Jesus avoid the crowds and criticism.

“How do we explain the basics even better?”

Whatever you are doing, there are things that people just don’t understand. They are simple, to you. They are basic,
to you. But we need to be clearer, more thoughtful, more consistent.

“What are you hiding? Why?”

I’m asking myself that more often thanks to Brene Brown who talks about vulnerability and shame and courage.